Hartwell Tavern, Battle Road

April 19, 1775

The Battle Road

As the British Regulars retreated from Concord, many small battles were fought along the way.

The Hartwell Tavern was the scene of sporadic fighting between militia employing guerilla tactics against these retreating British soldiers.

While the British employed standard European battlefield tactics pioneered by Friedrich der Grosse (Frederick the Great), King of Prussia, decades earlier, these tactics did not work well in the heavily forested landscape of the New World. As a result, the British casualties on the way back to Boston were more than the lost at Concord's North Bridge.

By the time the British arrived back safely to Boston, they had lost 73 soldiers with 174 wounded while the Minutemen had lost 49 men and suffered 39 wounded.

Many of the nearby battle sites associated with Lexington and Concord are part of Minute Man National Historical Park:http://www.nps.gov/mima